Handrail reentry safety devices for escalators and moving walkways are used to prevent and/or sense the entry of foreign objects on the moving walkway into the handrail reentry housing. These safety devices are intended to prevent or minimize injury to passengers or others in the vicinity of the exit landing of the escalator or walkway. The various safety devices which have been proposed include brushes and extended shrouds or hoods which border the reentry housing mouth and which are intended to prevent objects from entering the reentry housing. Such prevention devices have not proven to be 100% reliable in performing their intended function. Other proposed devices include a detector of one sort or another that senses the presence of a foreign object near the reentry housing, or that senses the entry of a foreign object into the reentry housing. These devices will typically set off an audible alarm, and then after a preset time delay, will interrupt power to the escalator so that the entire machine will be shut down. Some of these detectors will shut the conveyor off without the time delay when a foreign object is sensed in the reentry housing.
The aforesaid prior art handrail safety devices which merely sound an alarm, or merely attempt to prevent something from entering the reentry housing, when ineffective, may not prevent injury to passengers or others. The devices which turn the escalator or walkway off when a foreign object is sensed in the reentry housing may also not prevent injury due to entrapment because, in conventional escalators and moving walkways, the escalator steps and handrail are both driven by the same motor through various chain and sprocket connections. Codes require a maximum deceleration of 3ft/sec.sup.2 for the steps when the escalator stops. This deceleration rate has been established so as not to cause passengers who are standing on the steps to fall as a result of a sudden stopping of the steps. While this solves the problem of passengers falling as the escalator stops, it also results in continued movement of the handrail after the object has been detected on the handrail or in the reentry housing. Thus continued handrail movement can lead to entrapment of the detected object between the handrail and reentry housing.